Federal prosecutors announced Nov. 14 a six-year plus eight-month prison sentence in a plea agreement with a defendant charged with causing the death of a man by selling fake pharmaceutical drugs laced with fentanyl.
Ian Edward Parrish, 28, of San Jose, California pleaded guilty in August to selling four pills—two of which were counterfeit Percocet containing fentanyl—in Aug. 2022 to an Ohio man in a bar in Fremont, a city near Oakland in the East Bay.
The victim—who had six children and 11 grandchildren—asked Mr. Parrish if the pills were real, and the defendant replied that they were, though he knew they were not, according to charging documents and the plea agreement.
Approximately 17 minutes after consuming the pills, the victim became unsteady and lost consciousness. Though responders attempted to revive him, the ingestion of fentanyl ultimately resulted in his death, according to the justice department.
Odorless, tasteless, and nearly impossible to identify without specialized test strips, a fraction of a milligram of fentanyl can prove fatal, with two milligrams—a few grains—considered a lethal dose, according to experts.
Death is typically caused by asphyxiation, as the drug slows respiration rates, according to medical experts.
A common prescription pain medicine and controlled substance, Percocet is routinely faked by drug dealers, with the majority of blue pills with “M30” markings sold on the streets containing lethal synthetic opioids, according to law enforcement experts.
“Counterfeit, fentanyl-laced pills are usually shaped and colored to resemble pills that are sold legitimately at pharmacies,” prosecutors wrote in the press release announcing the sentence. “Very small variations in the amount or quality of fentanyl create huge effects on the potency of the counterfeit pills and can easily cause death.”
Popular pharmaceutical products are often targeted by drug dealers, with Xanax, Oxycodone, Adderall, and others among those mostly seized by authorities.
Alarmed by the sharp increase in overdose deaths over the past three years, authorities recently launched a “One Pill Can Kill” campaign seeking to inform the public about the dangers of consuming fake pills.
Law enforcement experts caution that fentanyl can be disguised in a number of products, including candy infusions, on paper, in liquid drops, and reportedly in cannabis—designed to create addicts by introducing them to the highly addictive substance.
Fentanyl is the leading cause of overdose deaths in the U.S.—responsible for approximately 200 overdose deaths per day—according to the Bethesda, Maryland based National Institute of Health.
Approximately 6,000 Californians died in each of the last two years due to fentanyl overdoses, according to preliminary data released by the state’s department of public health.
State lawmakers seeking to identify solutions have struggled to find common ground, with one side believing that more education and overdose prevention are needed, while the other argues that penalties should be increased for fentanyl dealers.
Meanwhile, some prosecutors at local and federal levels are investigating some overdose deaths as potential homicides or manslaughter.
A jury in Placer County, California—near Sacramento—recently returned an unprecedented second-degree murder conviction and 15 years-to-life prison sentence for a 21-year-old man that sold counterfeit pills leading to the death of a 15-year-old girl.
